CERES advances a cause-and-effect understanding of how future climate change will influence Europe’s most important fish and shellfish populations, their habitats, and the economic activities dependent on these species. CERES will involve and closely cooperate with industry and policy stakeholders to define policy, environment, social, technological, law and environmental climate change scenarios to be tested. This four-year project will: 1. Provide regionally relevant short-, medium- and long-term future, high resolution projections of key environmental variables for European marine and freshwater ecosystems; 2. Integrate the resulting knowledge on changes in productivity, biology and ecology of wild and cultured animals (including key indirect / food web interactions), and ‘scale up’ to consequences for shellfish and fish populations, assemblages as well as their ecosystems and economic sectors; 3. Utilize innovative risk-assessment methodologies that encompass drivers of change, threats to fishery and aquaculture resources, expert knowledge, barriers to adaptation and likely consequences if mitigation measures are not put in place; 4. Anticipate responses and assist in the adaptation of aquatic food production industries to underlying biophysical changes, including developing new operating procedures, early warning methods, infrastructures, location choice, and markets; 5. Create short-, medium- and long-term projections tools for the industry fisheries as well as policy makers to more effectively promote blue growth of aquaculture and fisheries in different regions; 6. Consider market-level responses to changes (both positive and negative) in commodity availability as a result of climate change; 7. Formulate viable autonomous adaptation strategies within the industries and for policy to circumvent/prevent perceived risks or to access future opportunities; 8. Effectively communicate these findings and tools to potential end-users and relevant stakeholders.

GAIN is designed to support the ecological intensification of aquaculture in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA), with the dual objectives of increasing production and competitiveness of the industry, while ensuring sustainability and compliance with EU regulations on food safety and environment. Eco-intensification of European aquaculture is a transdisciplinary challenge that requires the integration of scientific and technical innovations, new policies and economic instruments, as well as the mitigation of social constraints. Successful eco-intensification of aquaculture will provide more and better aquatic products, more jobs, and improve trade balance by reducing imports. GAIN, besides looking at innovative ways of integrating cultured species, will seek integration with other sectors, in order to promote the implementation of the principles of circular economy in Aquaculture. The GAIN Consortium includes a wide range of complementary expertise and a well blended mix of research institutes and industrial partners, which will ensure the achievement of the following specific objectives: (i) Develop and optimize sustainable feeds, without increasing the pressure on land and fish stocks; (ii) Add value to cultivation, by means of innovative processes, which turn both by-products and side-streams into valuable secondary materials, thus increasing profits and minimizing the environmental footprint; (ii) Improve the management of finfish and shellfish farms, in terms of FCR, fish welfare and reduction of wastes, through the use of sensors, biomarkers, Big Data, IoT (Internet of Things) and predictive mathematical models; (iv) Support integrated policies and address current barriers to the implementation of the principles of circular economy in aquatic production.

The AquaSpace project has the goal of providing increased space for aquaculture to allow increased production. Following the call, we will achieve this by identifying the key constraints experienced by aquaculture development in a wide range of contexts and aquaculture types, taking into account all relevant factors and advised by a Reference User Group. We will then map these constraints against a wide variety of tools/methods that have already been developed in national and EU projects for spatial planning purposes, including some that have been designed specifically for aquaculture. In the freshwater sector only, we will also consider ecosystem services provided by aquaculture that are relevant to integrated catchment planning and management. At 16 case study sites having a variety of scales, aquaculture at different trophic levels with different environmental interactions and most importantly with a range of key space-related development constraints as defined by local stakeholders, we will assess appropriate tools using a common process so as to facilitate synthesis and comparison. This case study approach will generate a large amount of information and is allocated about a third of the project’s resources. The project will develop the outcomes leading to a set of evaluated tools for facilitating the aquaculture planning process by overcoming present constraints. This information will be presented on an interactive web-based platform with tailored entry points for specific user types (e.g. planners, farmers, public) to enable them to navigate to the tools most appropriate to their application. The knowledge and information gained during this process will be developed into an on-line module at Masters Level which will also be developed into a short CPD course aimed at aquaculture planning professionals. The public will be engaged by an innovative school video competition and a vehicle to ensure project legacy will be established.